


Some War

by locales



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, BDSM, Dom Tony Stark, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Getting Back Together, Kink Negotiation, Kneeling, M/M, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Panic Attacks, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Safewords, Sub Steve Rogers, Subdrop, pre-negotiated scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 03:31:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14127150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/locales/pseuds/locales
Summary: Steve comes back and Tony's been waiting for him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First off, a massive Thank You to [Silks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenasInSilks) for being a most excellent Cheer Reader and Beta! I wrote this fic after years of not writing anything because you told me to give it a go :'3. Thank you so much, [Sabre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabrecmc/), for your excellent CW meta. And all my love to [Blossoms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlossomsintheMist/) for being an amazing listener and for the gorgeous suggestions! 
> 
> **Notes:** This starts right in the middle of a pre-negotiated scene that appears to be going wrong. It’s set post-CACW. Steve and Tony were already in a relationship and it also had a D/s element. It has some spoilers from the Infinity War Prelude Comic #1. Not "Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)" Compliant.
> 
>  **Additional tags:** Mentions of Hard BDSM, Gags, Clamps, Blindfolds, Collars, Gagging, Mild Pain play, Ribbons, Face-slapping, Hair Pulling, Humiliation, Offscreen Aftercare
> 
> If I missed tags or if there are spelling/continuity errors, let me know! Please avoid this work if any aspect upsets you. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!

Steve’s world whites out when the ribbon flutters down from his mouth. 

Tony’s twisted off the clamp from his top lip. The gold one with the rubies and blunt teeth. It's like a searing brand, one sharp point of pain.

Steve goes stock-still, a white-hot shame burning behind his eyes.

_No._

\--

Sometime between the war at home and the war up there and the war inside, Steve came home. 

He'd landed with the clothes on his back, possessions meager, jet-lagged beyond belief, exhaustion making him see levity where there was none, trading quips with Sam and stealing from Natasha's bag of falafel. 

One hand deep in his pocket scrabbled at his lifeline. Thumbnail on the edges, down the ridges in a familiar pattern, chasing minute scratches down the shell, the phone’s hinge loose from opening and closing one too many times for messages typed but never sent.

A sickening lurch in his gut when he took in Tony's mussed-up hair and the dusting of white in his goatee and again, when Tony's mouth thinned into a grimmer line when his gaze fell on Steve. 

He'd strutted in, all dirty blond hair, beard and bravado, taken in the new faces, nodded at Tony. 

Thrown him a flippant _Stark_. 

Been dragged out of the conference room by his ear. Slammed against the wall, lifted up by the scruff of his camouflaged, bullet-hole-ridden uniform. 

Got every last _hurt_ from the past years kissed out of him. 

Till the only refrain left in his head was _Tony, Tony, Tony._

\--

Steve waits, kneeling, clad in a white tank top and jeans in their living room, back ramrod straight, palms facing upwards in obsecration, his face a vacant mask, eyes fixed forward, _How It’s Made_ running in the background, muted.

Tony walks in wearing one of his sleek grey _Berluti_ suits. His hair’s perfectly styled, goatee back to its razor-sharp edges, not a grey hair in sight. 

Steve's fingers give an involuntary twitch, an old need surfacing, to slide his hand around Tony's waist, to feel the body-warmed silk lining, to reside in its _safety_ again. 

Tony unbuttons his coat, loosens his tie, shrugs open the top button, ignores the vest, every act a deliberate meditation. 

Makes a neat arc around Steve, working the cufflinks out of their buttonholes. Worries the strap of his watch, hands rising up in the air and fingers snapping out a staccato rhythm. 

Lets his eyes sweep him, distant, a flat hum on his lips. 

The jingle from his pockets is barely audible over the roar of blood rushing between Steve’s ears, the sudden uptick of his heart threatening to break out of its flesh and bone home.

Steve flushes, eyes dropping down to where vamp meets the welt in his shoes.

He regrets his involuntary flinch when Tony leans forward and raises his hand above him. Tony ignores it in favor of taking hold of his hair. And _yanks_.

He knee-walks Steve forward and settles on the couch, his grip still buried in his hair, till he's resting in between the vee of his knees. _Vee, knees, bees-_

Swift fingers begin an impersonal trip, brushing away his hair, tilting his face this way and that. 

He’s hyper-aware of his beard, the new lines he's accrued, the sharper cut of his cheekbones from one too many nights starving with Sam and Natasha, holding Sam through his own night terrors- 

A warning squeeze to his chin interrupts him, knowing. 

He's a broken thing being looked at, to be stashed away, stripped for parts, discarded. 

A sick clench, a _free-fall_ somewhere in his gut, a rising panic at the thought of _Tony-_

A thumb pushes and dips into his lips, pressing his tongue down. Tony cants his head up and peers in. His face is a mask he doesn't want. 

“Color?” 

“Green, Sir,” he rasps out from under Tony's hand. 

Tony slaps him. 

Steve’s eyes widen in mortification, a sudden sob dying a garbled death in his throat. 

Tony gets up and moves to the window, his back to him, the clinking in his pockets more pronounced. A small kindness. 

He hands him a pair of small cymbals as he enters his vision again. Watches him run his fingers over the bright, bright gold of the discs, soft tinks piercing the deafening silence dancing between them. 

Lets him fumble and slide the elastic loops on. 

He’s not granted words tonight. 

“It’s one clink for “Yes”, two for “No” and three quick ones for “Slow down”, Champ. If you’re in any danger, _bashing_ it down on something or dropping it works.” The sharp look of grief in Tony's eyes is gone, as swift as it appeared. 

He takes Steve's hands, proprietary, curling and unfurling his fingers, loosening them around the discs, checking the integrity of the elastic with a snap. Takes and crosses his wrists behind his back. 

“Open,” Tony tips his head forward slightly. Taps his lips. Doesn't wait for him to obey. 

Steve does anyway. 

His spit forges a steady path down his scruff, a clammy wetness he can't escape, dripping and feathering out on the carpet. 


	2. Chapter 2

Tony swipes the edge of his scar again, a ghost of a thumb and blue, blue eyes resurfacing. 

Lately, it's been “I failed, I almost failed, I’m going to fail if I don’t fix this” and _this_ used to be a vague, hand wavy sort of terror, not tangible portals in the sky, not dead teammates, not the love of your life asking how you could let _this_ happen as he dies.

It’s a whole index of almosts. You almost said a proper goodbye to your parents back then, you almost got blood on your hands you could never wash off when Zemo trotted out his shitty Gym Class VCR routine -

Life comes in bits and pieces, salvaged here and there, bits and pieces of people who stay and leave, it’s “I might need it later, I might fix it someday, he might come back one-” 

No. He had work to do. 

\-- 

Tony’s not nervous. 

He’s too old, seen too much and what he hasn’t seen, he’s run probabilities for, covered all bases. Well, almost. 

Then his exiled idiot’s blowing back into town, guns blazing, fugitive posse in tow, yeah. 

He’s nervous. 

And furious.

The anger that comes from fundamental betrayals, that can’t be settled, because it's a violation. 

He keeps busy, building and rebuilding his armors, weapons for his team- _associates_. It's not for them, it's for- 

It's move or die. If stop, then die. Stop, then feel. It's signs missed, things hid, words not said, not said often, not said at all. 

So you don't stop _doing_ , because when you stop doing, you think- 

There goes that tune again. 

_\--_

The more pleasing mental excursions feature Steve strung up, red ropes and wires crisscrossing him, golden clamps wired to send random jolts, moans falling freely, ass prepped, presented strategically, ready to be struck raw till he makes him cry _,_ to be fucked- 

So sue him. He isn't getting any and it feels good. 

\-- 

Then his boy comes back.

Looks like he never left the war, raring to start a dozen more, his face gaunt, his hair darker, looking like a stranger, the beard- 

_Goddamn_.

For months, his thoughts had been on a loop, a recursive nightmare collapsing in on itself, there's the war from above, he feels like some survivalist prepper on a History Channel ditty, clutching at his canned goods and nudie mags. 

He’s also down here, though, desperately grasping for anything, just a scrap of information he's safe. Alive. 

It's easier to see him as a symbol. Infallible. Upright. An _ass_. It should be a piece of cake. 

Would make it all the more easy to blame him for what happened, what he did. 

But they didn't see him- they didn't see him bleed, broken, swimming in his hospital gown, drugged up so badly under Technicolor bruises. 

Didn't stand numb when Wilson delivered his morose report of Steve's brush with Barnes. 

Everything happened too fast with Steve: the pain meds going through him like a placebo, a joke, their first kiss after the shawarma date, the _ring_ he'd modified out of his Mother’s- 

\--

He's dutiful.

Pores over files Rhodey’s pulled in some favors for.

Goes through news reports of any “Rogers and Co” sightings, catches whispers of obscure cells disrupted, sifts through blacked out folders of charred bodies with _teeth_ removed-

_You didn’t have to carry it all by yourself, you idiot, you have- You had me. For years, you had me._

Somewhere in-between the start and the middle, Steve stopped being Cap and became _his._

If this is his last labor of love, so be it.

\-- 

Except- 

His brat rolls in, game face on, unrepentant. 

Has the _gall_ to call him by his fucking last name, the one he'd wanted to share with him someday- 

Neutral goes out the goddamn window, along with millions of dollars and hundreds of SI work hours in “Searches for Self”. 

Because before he knows it, he’s walking up to the young fool, twisting and dragging him out by his ear, pinning his bare arms to the wall and kissing him. 

Hands roaming all over, touching him, taking stock of the damage to his uniform, once a life-affirming ritual, now a fresh new hell. 

_Are these- Are these bullet holes? No, they don’t seem singed, a spear? Arrows? Were you running around in this old thing getting maimed-_

Checking and double-checking his Steve’s safe, solid, here. 

Leads him to his- their room, arm around his waist, their shared retreat familiar. 

\-- 

Steve comes pliant. 

Sits at the edge of the tub as Tony draws a bath. 

Head in his hand, doesn't say much, just nods and shakes his head, like something broken pulled through too many years, never taken care of, never given a rest, never _loved-_

Nope. He's not doing this now. He's got more important matters right in front of him. 

Like the hulking figure trying to disappear into his charred uniform that looked like something he could have easily pulled out from one of those morbid little field trips he took. 

Nope. 

\-- 

When they’re cuddled on the couch later, Steve’s head resting in the crook of Tony's shoulder, worrying the button above the new scars, fingers too hesitant to touch them, the last of his occasional hitches dying down, Steve tells him about the last two years. 

The places he’d seen, the faces he’d been, of rations too meager he let Sam have his share often. Of reports he’d had to manufacture and spread around, to throw people ( _Ross_ ) off his scent. 

Tony drops a kiss down on his hair, giving his shoulder a squeeze. 

He shifts up, nuzzling into Tony’s neck, breathing him in, squeezing Tony's fingers. 

Tony drags his hand down Steve's back, feeling the newer scars, undoing and redrawing familiar maps. 

“I wasn't even here for-” Steve's fingers stop fraying Tony's buttons and hover over the scars, not daring to touch. 

Tony tightens his hold around Steve's waist, feeling the sweat-slicked skin cool under his fingertips. 

“I'm sorry I left, Tony. I didn't think I deserved to come back,” pauses at Tony's stricken look. 

“Come back _here_ ,” Steve recovers. “Till you kissed me outside the conference room-” another pause. “I didn't think you'd ever want me back.” 

“It's funny, more than once, I thought I lost _you_. I made my peace. I occupied myself. But you were always a- a process running in the background. If you'd died-” 

Tony's thumb stops drawing its lazy arcs on Steve's thigh. 

“You just left, Steve. I spent - I spent months trying to find some trace, I sifted through body bags-” Tony runs a hand down his face, the scruff catching, a low scratch. 

_“Tony.”_

Steve picks himself up and melts deeper to Tony, looking into his eyes, quickly dropping his gaze down again, fingers seeking fingers, tangling with Tony’s. 

“I was thinking. If you think it's alright,” Steve’s voice is a fragile thing. 

_His boy was meant to give orders, for him to get goosebumps all over when he did, not sound this defeated-_

“I want to be good for you again, Tony.” 

If he’s asking what he thinks, they'd need to start soft, nothing too intense. Tony knew all too well that even innocuous things ended up destroying civilizations. And he’d lived through a massacre. 

“We can't go back to our usual play, not at the start at least.” 

“I want- I need it a little _mean_ , Sir. I don’t want gentle.”

“Are you _ordering_ me, Champ? As much as I've been waiting to take my new cane for a spin and cover your ass in fabulous stripes...” 

Steve's breath catches audibly as Tony tightens his grip on his waist, blunt nails digging in. 

“It’s just-”

“I'm not _mad_ , Steve. Disappointed, yeah, infinitely. There's a fair bit of trust- well, a lot of trust lost.”

“I don’t know how to make that up to you, Tony,” the hitch is back and Tony hates himself for not, for not seeing, for not stopping this but at the same _time_. 

“Oh, you’ll be detailing my cars for years, Sweetheart. Possibly naked with a sponge taped to your tits or the gag in your mouth,” he says, reaching around, giving his nub a twist. _Oh, how he'd missed Steve's full-body shudders and flushes._

“I’ll watch you, give directions,” levity masking the low-grade existential terror that’s a constant tinge around all his thoughts these days. 

Steve looks up at him, eyes still a tad wet. 

“We’ll need to talk limits and what I can do. And there will be lots of aftercare. Because _I_ need to make sure-” 

Hugs Steve a little tighter. 

“Thank you, Sir. I-,” there’s that _hitch_ again. “I trust you, Tony.” 

“I know, Sweetheart. I’m getting there too.” 

Tony drops another kiss on his hair, ruffling it for good measure. They stay that way for a long time, till Steve nods off, exhausted. 

Tony follows him in a lighter lockstep.


	3. Chapter 3

“I think,” Tony fills his vision, swiping his thumb at the sodden rivulet, wiping it on his cheekbones, a filthy anointment. 

“Think I’ll dabble in symbols, Cap. Which is absurd, I'm not an artist.” 

Calloused fingers dip into his mouth, a lazy grip on his tongue, a casual twist that leaves Steve gagging. 

He pulls out a ribbon secreted away under his vest with his other hand, warmed above his heart. Scrunches up the snow-white organza in his fingers, lets it brush up his beard. Shows it off in front of his eyes. 

_Clink_. 

“White like your lies of omission,” Tony says lightly, as he nudges his head back again. 

Steve's eyes are burning behind his lids, mouth held open, the ribbon placed delicately across his tongue. It brushes his beard on either sides every time he swallows, a constant and delicate burn. 

The interlocked weave of the organza strip scrapes his tongue, hypersensitive to anything foreign, his mouth agape like a caricature. 

Tony runs his fingers through Steve’s hair and tugs a little, ruffles it, brings down his lips to kiss his forehead

“ _Good_ boy.”

Steve preens at the affection in those words, the unexpected benevolence twisting him up and turning him inside out.

“Drop your ribbon and there’ll be some interesting consequences tomorrow, Sweetheart.”

Steve’s attention, already grazing at the edge of something bright and blue, gets tugged into focus. 

_Clink_.

Tony holds up another strip of gossamer-thin fabric at his eye level next. Steve nods and Tony wraps it around his head twice, his world now fuzzy, through diaphanous red.

Steve feels Tony touch the nape of his neck, the slight brush of more lace crawling around his neck. 

“And some blue, to complete the ensemble.” 

Can’t help his sharp intake of breath. _Clink_. 

He takes in Tony’s look of concentration through the red lace. Feels the elastic of the finger cymbals warp around his fingers as he flexes them, the various fabrics on his body each calling him to service a different sensation.

“You can spit out the ribbon at any time and use your verbal safe word too.”

Steve nods again, lips moving on auto-pilot, mouthing at the ribbon, his lace collar catching at his throat as he swallows, sweat slowly seeping in and painting his vision burgundy. 

\--

Steve doesn’t see the first clamp coming.

\--

It’d been a task in itself holding his mouth open around the ribbon. He got lost in his head, the minutes stretching- 

\--

Tony bends down and picks up the damp ribbon with a soft grunt, running it between his fingers, considering Steve, worrying his bottom lip. 

“Sir -”

The sudden slap stings. 

Steve jerks left in a red haze of broken teeth and withheld words, a shattered _Tony_ threatening to spill. 

Rough fingers are on him again, pressing and decompressing the reddening skin. 

“We talked about this, Sweetheart. No words. Just me. You don’t get to say anything tonight, that’s not your place. Color?”

_Color-_

Clink.

“Now, was that so hard?” 

Tony combs back a few stray strands of hair that have shaken loose, a gentle hand cupping the cheek that's stopped throbbing. 

Scrubs at his tears with the rough ribbon and taps his mouth again. 

\--

Steve reacquaints himself with the ribbon. 

It’s saltier, the texture scraping his tongue dry, strangely heavy in his mouth, a muzzle impeding words that suddenly want to spill, usually so absent. 

He’d soaked it through earlier but his mouth is sandpaper now, parched.

\--

Steve feels the silk pocket square slide through his spit-slicked beard. Feels more tears slip out. Feels the gentle swipes as Tony wicks it all away, as if he deserves this _kindness_ -

Tony settles behind him, taking his left hand, worrying the web between his thumb and pointer, dragging a warm metal clip, opening and closing it, letting it catch in his skin and tug. 

“You didn't write, you didn't even send me an SMS. God, that's _quaint_ ,” Tony huffs. 

“Imagine that, the three musketeers running around, hiding in a rabbit hole somewhere, typing out -” 

\--

_The phone a leaden weight in his hand._

_The words too staid, sometimes aggrieved, always remorseful, till fingers curled stiff from typing and retyping on the unyielding plastic keys seized up-_

_Tony -_

_He can't do this, he can't._

_One mistake and his world crumbles again-_

_God’s righteous man, won’t cry mercy, can't cry uncle-_

\--

Steve jolts as if stabbed, fingers skittering over the discs. 

_No._

“Steve! Come on, baby, _look at me_.” 

His world is a sharp incessant ringing.

\-- 

Steve blinks into the dimmed room as his blindfold’s removed, the cymbals distant klaxons in his ears over a tinnitus whine. The metal discs are gone. 

Tony’s hands are at the nape of his neck, mooring him, searing hot through the thin lace, his heartbeat running laps beneath steady fingers. 

He looks up into concerned brown eyes, feels Tony’s lips press into his forehead as he takes his face in his hands, cradling it like it’s something precious. 

Hears something whispered out in a plaintive breath. _Steve_.

“Tony- _Sir._ I’m sorry-”

“Steve,” a bit firmer now. “We’re done.” 

Steve feels his heart judder, tries to scramble up, tried to grapple at Tony- 

_He's the one falling in this waking nightmare-_

Tony takes his wrists, squeezes, surrounds him in a loose hug, not wanting to crowd him in. Helps him up and leads him to the couch, his arm an anchor at his waist. 

“We’re done, sweetheart, because _I_ decided you’ve given me enough.” 

Steve feels the tears prickle behind his eyes again. 

_Can’t even do this right._

\-- 

Steve's breaths aren’t lacerating his lungs anymore. 

They’re done with everything Tony wanted to give him. The bath, the chocolate, the creams worked into every strain, the affirmations _._

He's a loose tangle of feelings, more a ball of yarn than Gordian knots. He fingers the blue lace around his neck, lifting up one end against the low light. 

“Do you want me to take that off, sweetheart?” Tony reaches up. Steve meets his hand on its way, threads their fingers together, brings them up to his lips for a kiss. 

“Will- Would I ever earn my collar back, Tony?” 

“That’s what you’re thinking about?” 

“Yeah, the last I remember, it was in our drawer but I don't-”

Tony twists away and digs around their nightstand, pulling out the pristine strip. 

Steve weighs it in his hand, not sure if he’d ever feel worthybut he would do anything for Tony, be the dust beneath his feet if that’s all he would give. 

It’s supple, springy, treated. _Cared_ for. The pendant with his beloved’s name on it shining bright. 

“I'll be better,” Steve chokes out. 

“I don't need better, Sweetheart. I'm just hoping for _safe._ By my sidewhen-,” not daring to go on. 

The braids dig into his clenching fist as hot tears threaten to spill again. He brings it up to his lips on a choked breath, kisses it with a reverence, won't ever let it go. 

He feels Tony’s amused huff and then the gentle kiss on his forehead, fingers combing his hair back. 

Something painful ebbs inside Steve, settles and withdraws. 


End file.
